By Mark Woolsey

A global company providing marketing print and packaging services is expanding its footprint in Austell with upgraded technology and a doubling of its workforce.

RRD says it’s implementing  what it calls industry-first robotic technology and features HP’s new 120K digital press and PageWise Advantage 2200 with HP Brilliant ink. They say the Austell factory is the first to employ both robots and sophisticated printers.

  What that boils down to, says Craig Roberton, president of the company’s commercial print division, is “ it gives us the advantage of being able to provide hyper-personalized products in real time to our clients.”

Roberton says many advantages accrue from the technological infusion including speeding products to market more quickly,  increasing overall efficiency and reducing costs for clients.

Company officials say a pair of autonomous robots will communicate with the sophisticated printers and will be moving both raw material and printed products about, both loading and unloading them from the printers while streamlining workflows and eliminating safety risks.

“And it will keep our presses continually operational,” Roberton adds, which will bring client processes to completion more quickly.

The commercial print head said the upgraded printers and other equipment have already been installed and some issues were being worked out before the robots are put in place in May.

Company officials stress the robots are quite intelligent in how they handle both raw materials and finished print projects, being run off of cameras placed throughout their facility and not guidewires.

And it’s technology supporting a part of the print industry staying the course in the digital era.

“We’re seeing a lot of success,” Roberton says, “what really don’t do is what you would think about as the declining part of print.”

Instead of the textbooks, the directories, the magazines and catalogues, think instead of general marketing material financial and health care information, such as health care kits, brochures, financial reports, retail information pieces in stores and such.

“If you go to our mailbox today, you’ll probably see something from one of our customers, “ says the print division head who says, while declining to name names, that they do business with 95 percent of the  top 1000 Fortune companies.

Also working in their favor is a high trust factor in printed material. He notes that surveys have shown that at upwards of 82 percent, according to a survey done by a direct marketing company.

As Roberton puts it, “when you open your mailbox and you get a piece delivered to you there aren’t a lot of worries as to whether you should click on it or not.”

And company officials say RRD is adding some additional enhancements for customers on-site including observation rooms where clients can check out the processes firsthand.

Roberton says the improvements in Austell are a beta workout for what they plan to do down the road in other company locations.